LYSISTRATA IN AMERICA

by Ruth A. Sheets

American women are facing a crisis that should have been settled more than 46 years ago when Rowe V. Wade was correctly ruled on by the Supreme Court.  The ruling stated that women have a right to abortion in the United States.   Since that time, conservatives and people who call themselves “Right to Life” have been doing everything possible to overturn this Supreme Court decision.  Why?  They want women put back in their place, back where “God” decides on pregnancy and men rule the home and everything in it, or think they do. 

One can understand why men would like this.  It allows a man to remain a juvenile who can boss a woman and children around, treat them just as he wants to, and be sure “his” woman does nothing he does not approve.  The confusion for me is that women go along with this.  One of the media darlings on this issue was a woman named Phyllis Schlafly, a lawyer whose purpose in life was to tell other women they should not have what she had.  Being a stay-at-home mom was a glorious thing, something all girls should aspire to. 

With her help, over time, vitriol against abortion and the women who had one became vicious.  A fetus was a person for many of them, even to the point of having more rights than the woman who carried it. 

When the “pro-life” prayerful protests didn’t work, their actions became louder and more extreme.  The movement encouraged bombing clinics where abortions were performed, killing abortion providers (it would save a lot of baby lives), passing draconian laws to make simple unimposing, safe, clean facilities unacceptable and require instead, unnecessary, unbelievably expensive surgical centers to perform a simple 5-minute procedure. 

When these actions  didn’t have the desired results, the movement got help from mega conservative organizations that designed bills for Republican legislatures all over the country that would ban abortions after some period into a pregnancy (20 weeks at first, then 8, then 6 weeks),  forced ultrasounds on pregnant women, forced women to get male permission, enforced extremely inconvenient long waiting times, threatened doctors with prison.  None of these helped any women because, of course, they were not meant to.  They were meant to send us back to the good old days when women had to seek back-alley abortions, often dying as a result.  For the pro-lifers, that was OK because those women deserved what they got for daring to end a pregnancy. 

Since the pro-lifers love fetuses so much, one might wonder if they care what happens after the all-sacred birth.  The answer is, of course not.  That’s the mother’s responsibility now.  Pro-lifers just got the baby born.  Now, you’re on your own.  Good luck!

No  matter how hard we who are pro-choice examine the problem, we just can’t seem to understand a few things (OK, anything about the pro-life position). 

- First of all, how does a man, any man (especially old white men) have a say regarding women's reproduction?  Men will never know what it means to be pregnant let alone pregnant as a teen, as a rape victim, as a victim of incest, as a college person trying to get life started, as a desperate carrier of a severely compromised fetus, you know, the things that could lead a woman to choose abortion.

- Then, how can a politician have a say in women's reproduction?  These guys not only are mostly not women, they are not doctors, and they really don’t care to learn about women’s needs.  Men are often pathetic hypocrites who don't want government in their business but are more than OK if government is in women's vaginas and uteruses.  

- Furthermore, How is it religious fanatics have any say regarding women's reproduction beyond FaceBook comments?  This country was built on the separation of church and state.  The right to abortion does not mean you must have an abortion, just that you can choose to have one. 

How should the thinking women of America respond?  We should pull a Lysistrata on the men of America.  Refuse all sexual contact with any man who does not 100% stand behind women's right to choose.

Men think that because they are loud and strong physically that they have a right to tell women anything they want about everything.  They don't and perhaps it is time we take a hint from the Ancient Greek play and kick disrespectful men out of our beds, possibly, our lives. 

Then we need to work on the women who are so afraid of men and what they think that they will betray their sisters and claim it is OK for women to be treated like little kids with no rights and no control over their own bodies.  Perhaps these women need to be pushed back a bit until they grow up and stand up for themselves and for their sisters. 
 
In the Greek play “Lysistrata,” the women refuse their beds to their men until the men stop the war that has been raging.  Well, this is a war against women.  It’s time we women follow the heroine Lysistrata and kick men out of our beds until they grow up and get out of women's reproductive decisions. 

Come on sisters and supporters.  Lysistrata has come to America and is showing us the way to get what we need! 

WOMEN HATING WOMEN

by Ruth A. Sheets
"Oh, you know her, she's just a . . ."  then "You know she can't be trusted, you know how women are."  also "I don't think I could stand her voice for 4 years."  and "She's such a b***h!"

I heard these statements and far worse during the 2016 presidential campaign.  I think I might get it more if they were said by men, as men's understanding of women is less than excellent.  I wasn't expecting the high level of vitriol toward Hillary Clinton from women.

I suppose I should have, though.  I am a teacher, a profession where females are the majority, in the classroom.  If you check out the positions of leadership in schools, district administration, and teachers' unions, however, men tend to significantly outnumber women.  Women supervisors/principals, though, have been crueler in their criticism and more vindictive, not just toward me, but also toward other women on staff.

Female teachers can be less kind to colleagues as well.  This unkindness is often subtle, a quick cutting remark here and a fake self-deprecating comment to someone in authority that implicates another teacher in something, there.  "I know I don't do it as well as Miss Smith who gets extra time every day to . . " "I didn't see Ms. Jones at lunch.  I guess she was here."  "I know it isn't as nice as Ms. Johnson's . . " (even though it was actually professionally done). 

I know that author Cheryl Sandberg tells women to "lean in," but what happens when there are several women leaning in at the same time or when one is perceived to be leaning in a bit more assertively than the other women?  Often, it isn't pretty.  What's going on here?  Women have made progress over the past few decades, haven't we?  Yes, we have, but there is something else going on.

Law Professor Patricia Williams in "The Nation" Magazine discussed the way some English words have become sexualized even though English words do not have gender prefixes and endings the way words in languages like French and Spanish do.   Which gender is associated with certain words is perfectly clear.  Cultural/social practices have associated characteristics to words.  So, the images one gets when saying or hearing the word "woman" can be pretty toxic.  Let's see, emotional, fussy, pushy, weak, submissive (or controlling) depending on a variety of factors, poor decision maker, vindictive, nasty, back-stabbing, soft, mother, nag, helpless.

Professor Williams uses the word "president" to help explain this phenomenon.  She says that Americans have an image of president as white and male.  It would be hard for many people to consider supporting a person in that office who is either a person of color or a woman.  This may account for the number of women who voted either for Donald Trump (despite his clear misogyny) or against Hillary Clinton, "She just doesn't 'look' presidential." 

Ms. Clinton did few of the reprehensible things Mr. Trump has done and her email-related poor judgment is really nowhere as serious as the media and Mr. Trump would have us believe.  But her sin is the worst one.  She's a woman and we can't get past what we believe a woman is/must be.  She tried to reach the highest office in the land, one she is not entitled to.  She left her place, so is an acceptable target for loathing by other women. "Only a man is strong enough to be Commander in Chief, you know."  

A few weeks ago, I attended an affair at a church.  The keynote speaker was a woman minister.  The event was to honor an extremely competent, active, caring woman for her years of service.  What was the talk about?  It was about how women need to submit to men.  They need to marry, have kids and submerge their needs beneath their husbands, the master and head of the house.  I was sitting with a woman who had divorced an abusive husband, yet, she kept nodding during the talk saying "Yes Lord" and "That's right."  I was totally shocked.  She was being insulted and put down, yet agreed.  And, the person doing the insulting was a woman.

The very little bit I could do was to occasionally shake my head and mumble "No, that's not OK."  (This was not my church and I didn't want to make waves.)  I didn't applaud for the speaker because I knew that most of the people in the room were strong competent, confident women.  I can honestly say I had no idea what the speaker was thinking and what led her to make such a ridiculous speech to these amazing women and why they all just sat there and took it with "Amen" and "Yes Lord.".  Could it be that somewhere deep down, we women believe that we really are not as good or as valuable as men?  Maybe, even most women see "popping babies" as our primary purpose in life, the secondary purpose being to support men and whatever they do or want.    

Perhaps, the only way we can really change things for women in society is to force the media to regularly show all kinds of women in a variety of roles, without male commentary.  More women need to step up and run for office at all levels.  This is not a new thought, organizations like Emily's List have been working on this for years.  However, it could be that more people saying and encouraging it could truly change the perception of women, even by women.

Hypocricans in Fine Form

by Ruth A. Sheets

It is not possible to overestimate the fear and loathing projected by the Hypocricans in Congress these days.  This week they have stepped up their efforts to eliminate women’s right to choose.  They also continued their assault on the poorest among us.  Their terror of immigrants, particularly those from Mexico and points south raised its head again.

The Hypocricans in the House of Representatives voted to outlaw abortions at 20 weeks gestation, criminalizing women who choose to terminate pregnancy beyond that point.  Some didn’t even want to make exceptions for rape, incest or health of the mother.  Do these mostly white men really care that much for the offspring of those pregnancies?  Not really.  If they did, these same Hypocricans would not have voted to lower funding for the food stamp program.  One would think they would be increasing all kinds of support to families in poverty.  They would at least double the money for family planning and contraception to keep such unwanted pregnancies at a minimum. 

So what is going on here?  You know!  The war on women progresses.

Hypocricans say they are fiscal conservatives.  That is an interesting claim.  Let’s check it out.

Just so they don’t have to pay for food stamps and other programs to support folks in poverty, they will continue direct payments to farmers, even if they don’t grow anything.  How do these things connect?  Well, the Farm Bill was up for a vote this week.  The Democrats, against their better judgment, compromised to lower payments for food stamps a little.  It wasn’t enough for the Hypocricans, who rejected the whole bill.  This means that the current farm subsidies will remain in place, money not spent wisely.  Hypocricans couldn’t stick it to those lazy poor people, so the whole bill goes down.

Next these “fiscal conservatives” pinned an amendment to the immigration bill demanding a level  of border security impossible to achieve.  This will cost billions of dollars.  Even though few immigrants are coming from Mexico these days, the proposal is to double the number of border guards and build more fences.  Their fear of the Latinos is evident since there is no proposal for fences and walls on our border with Canada.   Hypocricans then tie the “path to citizenship” for undocumented immigrants to the insane border requirements.  The Hypocricans actually believe in their heart of hearts that such blatant racism will win them Latino votes.  Really!

The scary part for me is that a lot of Americans support the Hypocricans.  Fear and loathing are such easy emotions and can be mined at little cost.  It takes little effort to convince people that someone is out to get what they have.  With facility, people can be persuaded that danger is around every corner, that evil lurks behind every door.   Who is presenting these threats:  women who want control over their own bodies, people sneaking over the border, indolent poor who prey on the rich.  And, of course, we all must be protected from them.

Perhaps, instead of the witch hunts they are instituting, Hypocricans should look in the mirror to find the evil they seek.

What’s with Men These Days?

by Ruth A. Sheets

Most of the legislatures throughout the country now are male dominated.  After the 2010 election when disgruntled Democrats and others sat home in some sort of protest that everything they had wanted did not come to pass, we women found ourselves under attack.

There has been a lot of talk of a “war on women,” and it appears to me that this talk has it right.  Male legislators push through bills that restrict nearly everything related to women and control of their bodies.  Sometimes, they do it as Virginia’s Governor has, when people’s attention is focused on something else (the fiscal cliff).  Now, in VA, not only do women who want to choose abortion have to go through an ultrasound first, the clinics where they can have the abortion safely performed are facing laws to modify facilities which have nothing to do with safety, provision of information, or quality of care.  The goal is to shut down the clinics, of course.

What are the jobs most under attack by Republicans as costing too much and not worth the cost? Teachers and other government workers (jobs where women predominate).   Most governors back down from cutting and limiting support for police and fire fighters and other higher-level workers, predominantly men.  Interesting!

There have been a few victories for women and their supporters.  At least three major anti-women candidates were defeated in November.  Women have again begun to pay attention.  More women than ever before are serving in the US Congress.  All these are positive, but certainly not enough.

It seems that men are getting more scared of women than ever.  Perhaps it is that they see women moving forward in most jobs.  Women have passed men in number at most colleges and universities, including programs for training ministers.  Women are proving competent and creative when it comes to business.  Do men in power fear they will have to share that power with the other half, the half they were brought up to see as inferior because their primary task is raising children, and we know how much our society values its children.

What do we women do?  Well. . .  

we stay alert to what is going on,  

we fight where we can,

we support each other, , 

we keep demanding reproductive rights no matter the obstacles, then we break the law if we have to, 

we work to help talented women keep abreast of the skills in their field while they take some time to get their/our kids off to a good start,

we try to get progressive and moderate men on our side to see that making life better for women benefits them too,

 

Let’s get radical in 2013.

Women DO Care About the Economy

Women in Binders protesting in Ohio

by muon

The other day Mitt Romney said all this talk about "women in binders" was just a diversion. He said women aren't all that concerned with "women's issues." He said what they really care about is the economy.

As for women caring about the economy, I couldn't agree more. So let me explain it to you, Mr. Romney.

You're the one who uttered the words "women in binders." It was part of your response to a question about the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Now, nevermind the fact that you lied about actively appealing to women's groups to find qualified women to fill cabinet posts (the women's group contacted you, not the other way around), the issue here is women who are often discriminated against in being considered for certain jobs in our society. If a woman can't find a job, simply because she's a woman, for her, that's an economic issue.

If a woman isn't paid equally for doing the same work as a man, especially if that woman's family depends on her paycheck to make ends meet, THAT's an economic issue.

If a woman can't afford contraceptives, and therefore can't plan a family according to what is affordable in her circumstances, THAT's an economic issue.  Not just a family issue, but a major national economic issue, because the more children who are born into poverty, the more strain it puts on social programs designed to help the poor. Of course, these are programs you'd just as soon take away from those children, but that won't change the fact that, without contraceptives, the population will grow, creating a bigger economic issue in the future.

If a woman and her family have inadequate preventative healthcare, to the point where symptoms are ignored because the cost of seeing a doctor, having tests, or buying medicine is too high, THAT's an economic issue. The nation's emergency room and clinics will be overwhelmed. The costs of major medical procedures can ruin families completely.

And that's just for starters. EVERY women's issue is an economic issue. And most women I know are getting very tired of having Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan dismiss women's issues as mere diversions.